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26' Blackman
Billfisher - The Grebe goes to Mag Bay - 2003!
By Steve Bergo
After getting visas, truck, towing
and on the water insurance we were ready. I pulled Grebe
out of her slip the first of August and had her fully serviced,
pulled the alcohol stove, installed inverter and microwave
oven (at Dons suggestion), I wanted to plumb propane to
the stove and BBQ, Don told me I would blow up the boat,
it was too small for propane. I'm glad I listened. We kept
a propane tank in a cooler on the swim step for the BBQ,
and zapped anything that would fall through the grill.
I also built 2 crutches to support the weight of the arch
while towing; this allowed me to strap the arch down. Grebe
has 1984 24 mi Furuno radar with a 36” pod
that's heavy. If un-supported I think the pod would have
ended up in my bait tank. There were a lot of other projects
done to ready the boat for the possibility of bad or dangerous
weather but I'm trying to keep it to a short novel.
We left
at 4:30 am Sept 15th, (shaking in my seat all the way to
the first toll booth south of Tijuana). I finally started
to relax at San Qiuntin. We left on a Monday to avoid weekend
traffic and it paid off. I had planned on a steady 35 to
45 mph; we ended up averaging around 60. The rig was sweet,
at first I found myself constantly looking in the side
mirror to see if the trailer tires were off the road. Around
Catavina I quit driving myself crazy, relaxed and started
enjoying the ride. I figured a three day run to Mag Bay,
we arrived at 1:30 on Tuesday, no flat tires, broken springs,
smoking brakes, all the problems I envisioned and worried
about never happened. We met a local fisherman that afternoon;
he helped us get fuel from the tank at grain pier, (there
is no diesel at the Pemex in town). Chris explained the
paper work dance. If you fuel up on the trailer all you
have to do is pre-pay at the port office and pull into
the yard. If you fuel up on the water you have to check
into port every time, which is about a 6-hour procedure.
Chris helped us launch at 6:30
Wed morning. He brought his panga and led us out to safe
water while I frantically logged waypoints. You must launch
and retrieve at high tide and the route out is a channel
around 6 to 8 ft deep. Its all sand/muck and mostly 2 ft
everywhere else. Out in the main channel I paid Chris for
all of his help and insight, he untied his panga from Grebe's
stern and we were off. The plan was to stay on the water
for a week at a time anchor off of Punta Hughes (a world
class point break) on the north side of Bahia Maria. It's
about a 50 mile run, 25 out of Bahia Magdelena and 25 up
the coast. I had discussed my priorities with Darren during
the planning phase of the trip. Priority #1 was surf. If
there was a swell I was surfing. Good south swells usually
last 3 days, we were there for 30 and could fish whenever
we wanted. Using charts and the lat/longs I recorded we
anchored at 3:30 Wed afternoon, paradise at last. 
The air temp was
around 90, the water was 81deg. I was in the water immediately.
We brought 6 boards, 1 kayak, and a 10' inflatable with
a 5 hp motor, assorted snorkeling gear, and a full scuba
setup for emergency use. I also rented a Sat Phone; I called
my contact to get an update on the weather picture. The
phone worked great except that we both sounded very drunk
from the distortion. The coast was clear so we inflated
and cruised over for afternoon surf, west winds are offshore
here. After 2 hours of ecstasy we motored back to Grebe
grabbed some rods and trolled the coastline. We kept 1
large Trigger fish and 1 larger Leopard Grouper and released
about 10,dinner. We had no refrigeration so the whole trip
our catch was limited to what we could eat and give away.
From Thursdays Sat phone
call we were told that the hurricane 200 miles south
of Cabo was heading west, no worries. We were catching
35 lb Yellows 5 miles off the coast, surfing 10 ft faces,
pulling lobster and abalone from 10 ft of water, life
was good. Sunday we got hit by a pretty good squall,
water was falling so fast I put all of the cockpit canvas
up to deflect water because the scupper holes were too
small. We noticed a lot of shrimp boats leaving the bay,
and saw the surf camp on the point breaking down all
their tents. I raised them on the vhf and Steve said
his info was that Marty had turned and was expected to
hit Cabo with 80-knot winds extending up to Mag Bay.
I called home on the Sat Phone and got the same news,
I thanked them for the warning buttoned up the boat and
headed south around 7:30 PM. We were running with the
wind for the first 25 miles and made good time. I wanted
to get to the entrance to Mag Bay before dark if possible.
It's a wide entrance but still new territory.
I had the entrance marked as a waypoint
so the last couple of miles in the dark were no problem.
The radar clearly showed the mountainous islands on both
sides of the entrance. Punta Entrada on the north side
rises to 600 feet; Punta Redondo on the south side is
close to 1000. Rounding Punta Entrada we felt the force
of the wind we'd been running with. I had to back down
to about 8 knots because of the short interval wind swell;
it felt like a washboard dirt road. When the speed dropped
below 6 knots the bow would quickly blow off to starboard.
I also started to pick up a lot of blips on the radar,
they were scattered a few miles ahead. Naturally it was
a new moon and all we could make out were a few lights
from the fish camp at Punta Belcher to port and Puerto
San Carlos on the far horizon. I wouldn't let Darren
pull out the spot light because I thought I would lose
my night vision. So he jumped below and spread the chart
of Mag Bay out on the table and yelled soundings and
direction to me.
As we got closer to the blips Darren
yelled the chart shows nothing, then we started to make
out the shadows of some good size trawlers anchored on
both sides of the main channel. They had no navigation
or anchor lights on. It was pucker time again. The farther
into the bay we went the number of shadows increased.
We couldn't go around the whole mess, for fear of grounding.
I really started to doubt my ability to go on. I thought
about dropping anchor right there, then my GPS alarm
went off, the radar went blank and the whole fly bridge
got real dark. I'm really puckering now. I could have
sucked the whole bench seat up my wazoo. This is the
first time in my whole 50 years I was not sure of the
outcome.
I got Darren up on the wheel and jumped down
to the electrical panel, engine batteries showed 14 vdc,
house batteries showed 9. I popped the battery hatch
and cover and everything looked good, grabbed tools and
loosened and re-tightened every connection, no change.
I dropped the electrical panel and checked every connection,
all good. I was panicking a little and decided to proceed
to the grain dock to the west of Puerto San Carlos and
anchor up till morning. I new I couldn't find my way
to the launch ramp area without my waypoints, we still
had about 20 miles to go. So God bless Darren that he
had enough faith in my ability to get us to safety, he
jumped back down grabbed a flash light and gave me directions
using the chart and his kayak paddle for depth soundings.
We finally got into range of the channel buoys. If you
look at a chart of Mag Bay, the approach is a Z. You
actually have to cruise in so many miles, back track
to starboard so many meters then sharply go to port again
for a mile or so. The buoys luckily are lit, but they
are very confusing. Darren, the master of charts that
he became flawlessly guided Grebe through this maze.
The
kayak paddle became very important now. As we approached
the north side of the grain pier we started to enter
the estuary. As we approached land the depth went from
30 ft to 4ft. We had drift or actually get blown back
toward the channel and try to set anchor. Darren was
shoving the oar and hitting bottom, we were on a high
tide and didn't want to anchor in four feet. It was 1:30
am. I was fried. I needed Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter.
My gut was burning. We dropped anchor on the side of
the channel in 1 oars length of water. I jumped down
off the fly bridge, pulled my meter and tried to sort
out the problem. Traced it to the splitter relay on the
backside of the electrical panel. This relay sends 14
volts to the house batteries and 14 volts to engine batteries.
No output to house. Being the master preparer I am, I
brought jumper cables. Clipped the hot side of engine
to the hot side of house. 14 volts.
We celebrated with a
Skippy Super Chunk PJ sandwich. Power restored, we are
in 8 feet of water hanging over a trough of 30 feet.
We knew this because the GREBE was violently being thrown
from side to side in 40 to 50 knot winds. All night long
I kept the motor running waiting to drag anchor and slam
into a trawler. All night long everything inside Grebe
flew from one side to the other. Literally she was thrashing
on her chain. I was thinking I should make a bridle,
this can't go on. Ten-minute naps were it.
Six am. We'd had enough, high tide wasn't until
8:30 but we had to get out of the water. I raised the
outdrive to beach settings, pulled anchor and motored
to within ¼ mile
of shore. Darren jumped into his kayak, paddled to shore
in nasty conditions. I ran the Grebe back out the channel
and around to the launch ramp. Darren pulled up with the
rig and I was a happy man. He even stopped at a street stand
and picked up a pack of cigarettes on the way. I was quitting
on our trip, but I told him not to show up at the ramp without
em. Life is good. Later that day I was talking to our amigo
Chris about the lack of lights on all the anchored boats
in the bay. His exact reply was “ you want lights, go back
to San Diego “. We tapped Pacificos and I made a toast
to San Diego.
The storm really affected the fishing. Yellow
Fin were still plentiful, but the Wahoo and Dorado really
thinned out. We never saw a marlin; we heard sporadic
reports on the radio but never saw the proof. If you
make to this area, November is prime time.
I should probably stop here,
there are a lot of amazing encounters in Bahia Maria.
It's worth the run. We woke up one morning to a 60 ft
sport fishers bow pulpit inches above Grebes stern. I
had been talking to the owner (kind of like Rodney Daingerfield)
on the radio for a couple days, giving him the numbers
to our latest Dorado zone; he thanked us with a nice
40 pounder. I literally stood on my transom, reached
up and took the fish form his hand and shook it. Such
control, 60 footer, I need one. Turtles, whales, locals,
It's a beautiful place.
We pulled out a week
early to check out Puerto Escondido. The evening before
we left a few of the local kids came over (they had been
trying to buy our surfboards since we arrived), knowing
they couldn't afford one I gave them my favorite 9 footer.
About an hour later they came back and gave us a kilo
of fresh shrimp from one of their dads boats, (maybe
they could afford… ah well).
We
spent 4 days in the water at Puerto Escondido, fishing,
diving and surfing behind Grebe. The electrical problem was
the only breakdown, oh and I lost the driver side mirror
to a wandering motor home just south of San Quintin, luckily
it was on the way home. All the prep work paid off, I really
expected and planned on more things breaking and going
flat and falling off. You know what they say, “ every time you
go out and come back it's a good thing”.
More pictures....
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